Thank you all for your wonderful advice! Formerly LanaRoma, I'm lana_roma now. Apparently, my email address was lost during the move, but my old username still remained in their database, although I couldn't get it confirmed even after multiple attempts. I asked the GW/Houzz staff to restore my account but received no help from them. I gave up and got a new account to be able to use GW. Oh well. The point about looking for hand painted vs decal is a great one. Now I'll make sure to have a magnifying glass with me when looking at china. Made a list of brands that you suggested and Googled them. Mottahedeh looks fabulous and very high end. V&B Anmut is such a sophisticated choice! Royal Doulton looks lush and Victorian - wish I had a Queen Anne house to go with it. :-) Spode Stafford is lovely. Lenox, Limoges, Pickard, Wedgwood and Bernardaud are on my list too. There's a lot of Noritake and Mikasa china on CL, but my understanding now is that those are pretty much mid-range brands. I'm confused about Haviland. There are Haviland sets for sale on CL, but some ads say that not all the items in the ad are Haviland, although they all have the same design. For example, this set is lovely: The ad Haviland Set on CL says that some pieces are "Haviland France, some are marked Z.S., & Co. Bavaria, and one is marked Japan", although the pattern is identical. Am I right to doubt whether it's a quality set? I'm a little confused about bone china too. I have two cup and saucer sets of hand painted bone china made in St. Petersburg, Russia. The china is very thin, translucent and with fine detailing. I also have a cup and saucer set marked as bone china and made in England. It's a nice set, but not as fine as the Russian sets. Thicker, a bit clumsier in shape and doesn't look so refined. Funny, when I browsed the local CL today, there were two Mikasa Classic Flair sets for sale. I like my Classic Flair set because I'm partial to Art Nouveau styling, although it's definitely not everyone's thing. Tureens - I use my Noritake Belle Rose tureen to microwave rice pilaf that comes in boxes. Works great! But it's marked as Cook'n Serve. Also, is there a high demand for fine china overall? Some CL sellers ask such high prices for used china. Like $1500 for a Royal Worcester Evesham Gold set: Evesham on CL . This baffles me. I have an Evesham Gold serving dish ( a gift) and it isn't really that high end to me. It's pretty, but not more.

Chiming in to ask for more feedback . . . because you pretty much posted my exact inquiry! Our daughter has made an offer (will hear back this afternoon!) on her first home. The purchase price is mostly in the 30 acres of perfection including a ridge line with views to die for and 1000 ft of trout stream frontage). The current residence itself is a "just fine" 20 year old manufactured doublewide. She isn't picky about housing and will live in that for some years until she later builds her forever home further into the property (and would then likely rent out the current residence until it's no longer worthy of maintaining or even just sell it off as it's on the edge of the property.) As a housewarming gift, my husband and I have offered to replace the stinky carpeting (about 1000 sf of it) with LVP. We are pretty handy, and we're planning to DIY the install. So, we need a modestly priced but durable and quality LVP product for DIY installation. Main criteria are a quality product that won't soon have gaps or cracks or other obvious serious defects and is as scratch resistant as is reasonably available. Floating installation, not glue down. And, since we're talking about a depreciating asset (not a house that rises in value), it's just silly to overspend, because this entire structure will end up in a land fill within the next couple decades. So, I'm hoping to keep the floor cost more in the $2-4/ft range. Can anyone help guide me to specific products? Especially those available at Lowe's or Home Depot, where I can see the product in person. Our local Lowe's happens to have excellent management and is very responsive to problems/etc, so I will lean towards a product available at Lowe's all other things being equal. Thank you!

Concrete - a good option but really hard on the body if you like doing body weight stuff and jumping around so you’d still want cushioned mats of some kind. I’d go for something non-rubber like the kid-friendly foam tile mats that connect together. We were maybe going to have the exposed aggregate concrete in our basement, but the grinding process is suuuper expensive. If you’re painting it, I’d think you’d want to grind it a bit to smooth it out first! Kellie, if VOCs are a concern rubber is absolutely to be avoided. It is by far one of the worst materials I’ve come across… I think it also off gasses slowly so it’s sort of forever toxic rather than at the beginning like other materials where you can just air it out and it’s fine after. Especially recycled content rubber, despite sounding more ‘eco’ friendly. You might already have a lot of rubber on dumbbells and weight plates for a barbell, these will be off gassing as it is so doing the entire floor in rubber is not ideal in my opinion. If you have a well designed HVAC system and ERV/HRV ventilation in your basement, you don’t have to worry quite as much as you will have fresh air diluting the off gassing. Go with a non-toxic flooring and add some small sections of rubber mats if you need to drop weights! One little strip in front of your weight rack might be enough, there are also foam pads. Cork is a bit soft so it could definitely get indented from any small pointy heavy objects, it has cellular memory though so it generally ‘bounces back’. I am thinking we will put down something like a piece of plywood under any large piece of equipment if the bottom is uneven or has little legs that might stab into the cork. Depends on your preferences, if you pop into a flooring place that sells cork they will know much more than I do though haha. I like something like this, but there are sooo many options depending on the style you’re after: https://www.icorkfloor.com/shop/leather-1-2-inch-12mm-cork-floating-flooring/

No one responded so I'll take a shot at this. Sunbrella is excellent fabric, and when recovering my cushions I usually start by looking at that, but there are so many brands that are pretty much the same thing, but cost significantly less. I would just replace the cushions you have. You can take them to an upholsterer, select an in-stock fabric, and save yourself a lot of money. What kills a lot of fabric is not just water, but being in the hot sun. Might depend where you live and weather conditions. Restoration Hardware has good quality outdoor furniture. There are many brands of high-end furniture. Just google it. Visit an upscale patio store, and start there. We have 30 year old Mallin furniture, and it's lasted this long. We had it re-powder-coated once and the swivel chairs have needed a repair or two, but pretty minimal. I believe they are still in business. We have recovered the cushions several times, and they need it again.